Project Management

Project management is fast becoming an exciting new profession. Project managers are in great demand. They may be required for a publishing house, a university, agricultural rural development, social work or industrial construction projects. It appears they are required wherever there is work. Project management seems to have captured the attention of all those who are looking for results. The prospects were not so bright some years ago. For that matter, even now, none of the universities in India offer a full-fledged degree course in project management. This necessarily poses a problem. What a project manager does in Company *X' is not the same as what another does in Company 'Y\ Today anyone holding a responsi­ble position in a project is a Project Manager—and if he pursues his own style in discharging his so-called Project management responsibilities, he can hardly be blamed.

To understand Project management we must first understand what a project really is. We hear of cement projects, power projects, refinery projects, fertilizer projects, etc., but while the term project is common to all of them, the plants arc not. In each case the project is for the plant but as soon as the plant is operational, the project is deemed to be completed. Similar is the case with any other project—say a project for methods improvement. The pro­ject is complete when methods improvement has been achieved. The explicit use of the term 'project' is not always necessary, even then it could be considered a project— the US government election is such an example.

A project, therefore, is not a physical objective, nor is it the end-result—it has something to do with the goings-on in between, which must be same, whether we build a high techno­logy process plant or merely hold an electron, to deserve a common name and to be termed as a project.

To understand what a project is, let us study how a project is conceived. In a business setting, whether in the public or private sector, an organization must grow at least for the sake of its survival. The organization, therefore, is continuously on the lookout for good business ideas which may require growth, either on the existing lines of business or in diversified areas. But the idea must be technically feasible, economically viable, politically suitable and socially acceptable. Once the ideas pass these tests, an investment proposal is made. When the invest­ment proposal is approved, the project commences.

Questionnaire:

• What is project management? Explain.